Vote of confidence

What may ultimately happen, she believes, is that "we settle into some form of prestige papers, a bit like the British model, where there are papers that cover government and other important subjects, and a popular press that's all tits and ass." For now, however, she reads the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Austin daily, "and a lot more online." The paper she trusts the most is the Los Angeles Times which, she says, makes the recent cuts there so hard to stomach -- "depressing," actually.

Regarding her third recurrence of breast cancer, Ivins says "I'd hoped to become a better person from confronting my own mortality. But it hasn't happened."